Daily Dose of Hope
August 25, 2025
Scripture – Luke 11:1-13
Prayer: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespassed against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.
Welcome back to the Daily Dose of Hope, a deep dive into the Gospels and Acts. Today, we dive into the first portion of Luke 11.
Today, we have some very important teaching on prayer. On one hand, prayer is simple–its talking to God. It is basic, it’s central to who we are as Christ-followers. For Christians, prayer is as necessary as breathing. You can’t maintain a relationship with anyone without communication, the same is true with God.
On the other hand, prayer is complicated. What exactly should we pray for and what should we not pray for? Do we always pray for healing? Do we pray to get that new job? Do we pray for our favorite team to win? That seems a bit self-serving. And while prayer is simply talking to God, are there certain ways we should go about it? In the Sermon on the Mount, we know Jesus says not to pray like the Pharisees who stand in public and pray loud, flowery prayers, to receive attention and admiration from others. Prayer is never about impressing others. It’s always about sincerely connecting with God.
So, for what are we supposed to pray? How does God want us to pray?
There is so much we don’t understand about prayer. But the disciples were in the same boat. In our scripture today, the disciples saw Jesus praying and asked him, “Lord, teach us to pray. And Jesus gives them a beautiful template for how to pray intentionally and for what to include in that prayer. Of course, we call this the Lord’s Prayer.
This is how Jesus breaks it down:
· Our Father in heaven – Jesus teaches us to start the prayer with some kind of words about who God is to us. He is my father in heaven. We tend to think of heaven as far off place, but in Greek, the word heaven was equivalent to the sky and all that is in it. By saying my father in heaven means that God is close to me.
· Hallowed be your name – Here we are saying that God is holy, he is worthy, and we give thanks for all he has done for us.
· Your kingdom come – We’ve talked a lot about God’s Kingdom so you know the Kingdom was the way God always intended his world to be, it is the place where Jesus is ruler and his values are in practice – love, justice, mercy, righteousness, and so forth. In saying this, we are asking to be part of making God’s Kingdom a reality right here, right now.
· Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven - What I find interesting is that we haven’t asked God for anything yet! We are half-way through this prayer template and we haven’t even gotten to a list of stuff we want or need. We’ve just been affirming who God is, thanking him, and praying that we can be part of making his will a reality here on earth.
· Give us today our daily bread – Now we are getting to the asking. But notice, we aren’t asking for filet mignon, it’s simply our daily bread. It’s asking God to provide for us what we need for today. This is where we struggle in western culture at times, asking for what we need and what is good for us, not everything we want. I certainly ask God for what I want (probably too often really) but when I do, I have to recognize that he is going to do what is best for me. There is a much bigger picture that I can’t see.
· And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors - Unconfessed sin drives a wedge in our relationship with God. Unforgiveness does the same. It breeds bitterness; it’s like a poison that can move throughout the body.
· And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one - Although God doesn’t tempt us, we recognize that we are easily tempted, and we need God to help direct our paths.
This is a wonderful template that allows us to be sincere and intentional in our prayers. It includes important elements that encourage us to acknowledge who God is to us, making his Kingdom a reality on earth, not allowing our asking to get too extravagant, being sure to address forgiveness, and even thinking about temptations. I want us to be careful, though, about not getting legalistic about it. Jesus isn’t saying that every single prayer must follow this format. His disciples have asked for help in praying and he is offering them some guidance. But we can look at Jesus’ prayers to the Father and see that he doesn’t always pray exactly like this. Sometimes, we simply need to pray what’s on our heart.
What else do we learn from today’s reading about prayer? Well, Jesus continues with some parables. He tells a story about a man who needs some bread for a friend who is visiting. He goes to the neighbor’s house and asks for bread but the neighbor doesn’t want to be bothered. It was late and the kids were in bed. But the man keeps banging on the door until the neighbor gets up and gives him the bread he needed.
Pray persistently. Keep on praying, don’t just pray one time and stop. If you truly need something, if God has laid it on your heart, then don’t stop praying. How often have we prayed and prayed for something and then stopped? It seems God isn’t listening or isn’t willing to give us this desire. But Jesus is clear – don’t get disappointed and don’t stop praying. Be the annoying neighbor who keeps banging on God’s door.
We also learn to pray expectantly. Ask, seek, knock. Pray expecting that God will answer your prayer. I can remember a woman in Cuba who prayed for help with her business. She pleaded with the Lord to offer her assistance so she could earn money and care for her family. She just knew that God would do this for her. And then we arrived not long after and gave her some assistance to get started.
And yet, this is difficult scripture. Some of you might be thinking, “Well, I prayed for my mother, or my son, or my husband to be healed and I prayed both persistently and expectantly, and it didn’t work. Things didn’t turn out, the relationship is still broken, or they still succumbed to their illness. My own dad was convinced that God would heal him from ALS. He told everyone who would listen that God was going to heal him. But he did die an earthly death, just two years after his diagnosis. I believe he did receive a healing; it just wasn’t the earthly healing we all desired.
What are we to make of this? I think part of it is understanding the context. Just as Jesus often used parables in his teaching, he also used hyperbole. Hyperbole, as many of you know, is an overstatement or an exaggeration, and this was a common way of explaining things at that time, in that particular culture. We, on the other hand, are products of twenty-first century modern life. In our culture, we tend to read everything very literally. And this isn’t a bad thing–we just need to consider that Jesus was trying to make a point.
The reality is that this world would be even more chaotic if Jesus’ words on prayer were meant to be taken literally. For instance, if we could just pray to have money and it appeared, well, then why work? If we could just pray to have an A on a test without studying for it, then everyone would have A’s and grades wouldn’t really have much meaning. That doesn’t mean we don’t pray, and it doesn’t mean we don’t pray boldly, because God intends for us to do so, but it means we know that prayer isn’t a get rich quick scheme or a way to get all our dreams to come true. It is a way to communicate with and get closer to God, a way for God to sustain us, a way to know that God is always with us. Pray expectantly because prayer does change things, but not always the way we want them to be changed. Pray expectantly because God always answers prayers, sometimes just not the way we want them to be answered.
There are certainly examples of unanswered prayer in the New Testament. The most obvious one is the apostle Paul, the greatest Christian missionary of all time. In 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Paul speaks of having a thorn in his flesh and pleading with God to take it away. We don’t know what this thorn was, but we do know it was extremely painful. Paul says this, beginning in verse 8, “Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Paul, although he prayed hard for this thorn to be removed, eventually came to the place in which he knew God would not remove this malady because it would help him grow into the person God wanted him to be. He also rested in the assurance that although he had to deal with this weakness, God would walk with him every step of the way.
Then, there is the incredible example of Jesus in his last hours in Luke 22, praying for God to remove the cup from him, to take away the terrible suffering and death he would experience the next day – trial, torture, and then the cross. But we know God did not take that cup from him...rather, it was used to redeem the world.
Really, I think the bottom line is that prayer is an act of surrender. In our on-going relationship with God, it’s an act of trust. There is really no other way to put it. We are declaring, “You are my God, I am your child. I need you.” Tim Keller, a brilliant pastor and writer, wrote this, “To pray is to accept that we are, and always will be, wholly dependent on God for everything.”
That’s probably more than enough for today. Let’s chat again tomorrow.
Blessings,
Pastor Vicki
